Hi,I was wondering if any of you guys could give me a concrete answer for this:I want to know how the body regulates cells, I did some research of my own and I know a bit how telomeres work and that cells get the signal to die if the telomeres are gone so the DNA wouldn't get damaged, but in my believes it can't be the only thing, since if that was how it works cells would barely die until a sudden point where all telomeres are gone and they would all suddenly receive the signal to die. There are also cancer cells which are mutations of cells that were supposed to die, this can happen at a fairly young age and they would have gotten the signal to die before they mutated. So how exactly do cells die if not for the shortened telomeres? I am really anxious to know this but I can't find it anywhere .Thanks in advance.

If you're talking about shaping the body (e.g. making fingers on fetus), that process requires programmed cell death. The mammalian cells require growth hormones and other signals to proliferate and live. If they lack them, or they receive signal to die off, they undergo the PCD.

The telomeres are problem, but they measure for all the cells about the same number of divisions, so there could be no selectivity. Cancer cells are usually able to overcome that by production of telomerase, which is enzyme elongating the telomers.

Yes, I think programmed cell death is what I was talking bout. The actual thing in my mind was why cells don't spread faster and invade other organs while cancer cells do, since even if cancer cells can divide forever, most normal cells also have enough telomere length to divide quite a lot. So if I am correct here, programmed cell death keeps the normal cells from growing out of control, so then not only the production of telomerase but also the ability to escape programmed cell death is present in cancer cells?